VIII.
THE WESTERN CHURCH.
Our story is not yet told. As regards the New Testament books, though the genius that produced them was Eastern, the judgment that brought them together in a single collection was Western. No list of the New Testament books pretending to carry weight was made until the year 360. For two centuries and a half there was no Christian bible. The canon, as it now stands, was fixed by Pope Innocent I., A. D. 405, by a special decree. Why precisely these books were selected from the mass of literature then in existence and use, is—except in two or three cases where the prevailing sentiment of the actual Church threw out a book like Enoch or kept in a book like the Apocalypse—still open to conjecture. In such a dilemma Schwegler's conjecture, that the irenical or reconciling books were retained, and the partisan writings dropped, is as plausible as any, perhaps more so. The Church of Rome had two patron saints—Peter and Paul; it claimed to be founded by both Apostles, and, on this principle, adopted its canon of scripture. The New Testament, by its arrangement, was, it is claimed, an expression in literature of the Catholic claim.
As regards the Christ idea, though formed in the East, the West gave it currency, made it the central feature of a vast religious system, crowned it and placed it on a throne. Had the creative thought of Judaism been confined to the East, our concern with it need have gone no further. But the thought was not confined to the East, even in the widest comprehension of that term. The Jews were everywhere. The repeated disasters which befel their country gave fresh impulse to their creed. Their ideas spread as their state diminished; and their ideas were so vital that they captured and engaged the floating speculations of the Gentile world whenever they were encountered. In Alexandria, where Jews had been for two hundred and fifty or three hundred years, and whither they flocked by thousands after each fresh national disaster, the faith, instead of being extinguished by the flood of speculation in that busy centre of the world's thought, revived, drew in copious supplies of blood from the Greek spirit, and entered on a new career. If it be true, as is declared in Smith's Dictionary of Geography, that when the city of Alexandria was founded (B. C. 332) it was laid out in three sections, one of which was assigned to the Jews, their political and social influence must have corresponded to their numbers. Prof. Huidekoper revives and reärgues the belief, that travelled men of letters from Greece, preëminent among them, Plato, who visited Egypt, borrowed from the Jews the ideas which ennobled and beautified the Greek philosophy. The doctrines of the Stoics, Greek and Roman, bear, in Mr. Huidekoper's opinion, evident marks of Jewish origin. This is going, we think, beyond warrant of the facts. We may claim much less and still place very high the intellectual sway of this remarkable people. It may be confidently asserted, that in portions of Asia Minor, Syria, and Northern Egypt, their faith had largely displaced the ancient superstitions.
The splendid literature of the Apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus and Wisdom, the rich fund of speculation in the Talmud, the intellectual wealth of Philo, the Pauline and Johannean Gnosis, brilliantly attest their intellectual vigor. The Rev. Brooke Foss Walcott, in Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible," declares, that from the date of the destruction of Jerusalem, in the year 70, the power of Judaism "as a present living force, was stayed." But such a statement can be accepted only in a much qualified sense. The destruction of Jerusalem put an end to the State more completely than the overthrow of any modern city could do; for the holy city was the home of the national life in a peculiar sense; it was the seat of the national worship in which the national life centred. With the temple fell the institutions that rested on the temple. When the walls were thrown down and the grand buildings levelled, it was like erasing the marks of history, tearing up the roots of tradition and setting the seal of destiny on the nation's future. The territory was small; the power of the great city was felt in every part of it, and the quenching of its light left the land in darkness. But the catastrophe which terminated the existence of the State, gave a new life to the religious idea and opened a new arena for its conquests. It greatly increased the number of Jews in the city of Rome, the imperial city of the West, the conquering metropolis; raised the congregations already existing there to a position of considerable importance; served to unite, by the sympathy of a common sorrow, parties that had been divided; had the effect in some measure to weaken antipathies, harmonize opinions and inflame zeal; in a word, transferred to Italy the faith that, in outward form, had been crushed in Palestine. Thenceforth Judaism, which had been a blended worship and polity, ceased to be a polity, and became more intensely than ever, because more exclusively, a worship.
The history of the settlement of Jews in Rome, is naturally obscure. Being mainly of the mercantile and trading class their presence there might have been expected early. They were restless, enterprising, industrious, eager and skilful in barter; and Rome attracted all such, being the business centre of the western world. Political affairs at home were never long favorable to peaceful pursuits, and were frequently in such confusion that the transactions of ordinary existence were precarious. The numbers that were carried away to Babylon comprised it is probable the more eminent class. As many, if not more, found their way to other cities, and of these Rome received its share. The earliest mention brings them before us as already of consequence from their wealth and intelligence. Sixty years before the christian era, Cicero commended Lucius Valerius Flaccus, prætor of the district of Asia Minor, because he did not encourage an exorbitant expenditure of money on the construction of the temple, by Jews, the exportation of whose wealth from Rome was felt as an evil. He states that under the directions of Flaccus, one hundred pounds weight of gold ($25,000) had been seized at Apamea, in Asia Minor; twenty pounds at Laodicea. The Jews were rich. Their demonstrations of grief at the death of Julius Cæsar, the conqueror of their conqueror, Pompey, and the enlightened friend of the people, argued by the number and loudness of the voices, the presence of a multitude. One may read in any book of Jewish history that Josephus reckoned at eight thousand the Jews who were present, when at the death of king Herod, his son Archelaus appeared before Augustus; that the poor among them were numerous enough to procure from Augustus a decree authorizing them to receive their share of the bounty of corn on another day, when the day of general distribution fell on their Sabbath; that one emperor expelled them as a dangerous element in the city; that another for the same reason laid special penalties and burdens on them; that the aristocratic party was steadily hostile to them. Tacitus, their enemy, speaks of the deportation of four thousand young Israelites to Sardinia. Josephus makes the astounding, the fabulous statement that in the year 66, the Jews in Rome required two hundred and fifty-six thousand lambs for their paschal commemoration.[2] Such a provision would imply a population of two million and a half at least. That the Jews were of some importance is attested by the comments made on them by Roman writers; by Martial, who alludes to their customs in his epigrams; by Ovid, who criticises their observance of the Sabbath as having the character of a debasing superstition and introduces a shirk who, having exhausted all pretexts, makes a pretext of respecting the Sabbath in order not to incur the ill will of the Jews; by Persius, who remarks satirically on the Sabbath observances and the rite of circumcision; by Plutarch, who minutely describes the Mosaic system of laws. Satire betrays fear as well as dislike. The great writer disdains to caricature people who are inconspicuous. Juvenal was a great writer, and his envenomed raillery against the Jews has become familiar by quotation. It would seem, from his invectives, that Jewish ideas and practices had crept into public approval, and were exerting an influence on the education of Roman youth. He complains bitterly of parents who bring up their children to think more of the laws of Moses than of the laws of their country.—"Some there are, assigned by fortune to Sabbath fearing fathers, who adore nothing but the clouds and the genius of the sky; who see no distinction between the swine's flesh as food and the flesh of man. Habitually despising the laws of Rome, they study, keep and revere the code of Judæa, a tradition given by Moses in a dark volume. The blame is with the father, with whom every seventh day is devoted to idleness, and withdrawn from the uses of life." Juvenal lived in the latter part of the first and the early part of the second century, about a generation after the destruction of Jerusalem. Admitting the genuineness of the passage, and the ground of the criticism, neither of which is disputed, the influence of the Jews was by no means contemptible.
Milman conjectures that while the number of Jews in Rome was much increased, their respectability as well as their popularity were much diminished by the immense influx of the most destitute as well as of the most unruly of the race, who were swept into captivity by thousands after the fall of Jerusalem. This may be true. There is reason to believe that the importation of so great a number of strangers was attended by poverty, distress, and squalor, horrible to think of. It could not have been otherwise. That they should infest and infect whole districts of the city; that they should pitch their vagabond tents on vacant plots of ground, and should change fair districts, gardens and groves into disreputable and foul precincts; that they should resort to mean trades for support, peddling, trafficking in old clothes, rags, matches, broken glass, or should sink into mendicancy, is simply in the nature of things, But it is fair to suppose that the exiles from Jerusalem would bring with them the memory of their sufferings during the unexampled horrors of that tremendous war; would bring with them also a fiercer sense of loyalty to the faith for which such agonies had been borne, such sacrifices had been made. That they held their religion dear, is certain. Their Sabbaths were observed, their laws revered, their synagogues frequented, their peculiarities of race cherished and perpetuated by tradition from father to son. There is reason to think that they anticipated the Christians in their practice of burying their dead in the catacombs, which bore a strong resemblance to the rocky caverns where in the fatherland, their ancestors were laid. The catacombs in the neighborhood of the Transtevere, the district where the Jews mostly lived, are plainly associated with them. The seven-branched candlestick appears on the wall, and the inscriptions bear witness to the pious constancy of the race.[3] They made proselytes among the pagans weary of their decrepit and moribund faiths, and thus extended the religious ideas which they so tenaciously held. Among themselves there was close association, partly from tradition and partly from race. Some semblance of their ancient institutions was kept up; their general council; their tribunal of laws. Circumstances alone prevented them from maintaining their ancestral religion in its grandeur. Seneca, about the middle of the first century, represents Jewish usages as having pervaded all nations; he is speaking of the Sabbath. Paul found thriving synagogues, wherever he went, and wrote to some that he could not visit, before the destruction of Jerusalem made the final dispersion.